6 Essential Steps on How to Donate on Twitch

In the twenty-first century, it’s become more popular to watch other people play video games over pre-recorded videos or live streams. In the common era, we call them ‘streamers’ to those who spend hours playing and streaming video games. 

Most of them quit their jobs to become full-time streamers and generate revenue from donations viewers send them, or from advertisements. 

You probably know what I am talking about since you have started to watch some live streams and really want to support a streamer of your liking or perhaps you want to become one and understand how donating works.

Whatever the reason may be, here on this article you will find an easy 6-step guide on how to donate on twitch and reasons why donating is beneficial. 

Why Donate on Twitch

Donating to your favourite Twitch streamers can be a rewarding experience for you and for the streamer. More than just sending them ‘free money’, as many would say, it’s also the act of supporting someone’s dream, hard work and dedication to entertain others. Especially new streamers are the ones who need donations the most, as many leave their jobs to focus only on their passion of entertaining people. The stress many of them go through to make a living can be quite intense and I’m sure you know what it feels to be under stress, you don’t wish that to anyone! 

As I said before, donating can be quite rewarding and beneficial for both parties, the streamer and the donator. Do you know what are the rewards for donating? Here I will explain some of the benefits and rewards that stand out the most. 

Benefits of Donating 

These three benefits stand out the most because they favour both parties      (streamer & donator) equally, without making the streamer the main focus but highlighting the kind act from the donator. They are also long term benefits that both can see the effect on the streams and quality. 

Join Streamlabs Prime 

The first benefit of donating on Twitch is joining the premium service of Streamlabs. Streamlabs is a website that has many different tools for streamers to help them create quality content, manage all the donations and other tools. 

Joining Streamlabs Prime rewards you with new add-ons, effects and also allows you to browse over several GIFS and other images to send to your favourite streamer.

Help Streamers Improve Their Setup 

Donating some money to your favourite streamer also allows them to save and afford streaming setup accessories (which are quite expensive) that assists them to make better quality content and continue growing their audience. Although this only benefits the streamer monetary wise, the benefit for you and all the other donors is the continuation of the streamer and the potential for better content.  

Possibility to Connect or Chat with your Favourite Streamer

Most of the times people donate, streamers acknowledge the donor’s support and say thank you while streaming or perhaps they have a leaderboard with the top donors and they get in contact with them. Donating on a constant basis can give you the privilege to get on top of the leaderboard and have the possibility to chat with them. 

In other occasions also, if you are a streamer too they will help you by linking your channel to theirs or give their audience some reference to go and support your channel too. 

6 Easy Steps to Donate on Twitch 

So after explaining the benefits and why you should donate, here is what you click the link for, these are the 6 steps about how to donate on Twitch:

Step 1: Create or Log into Your Twitch Account 

What else were you expecting? It’s the 21st century, of course, you have to create or login into an account! They need to know you’re real, plus it saves you time, next time you want to donate or watch your favourite streamer. 

To create an account simply go to Twitch.tv and in the right upper corner click on sign up and follow the steps. 

Step 2: Find the Profile of the Streamer You Want to Donate to

After creating an account or login in, on the search bar look for the username of the streamer you want to donate to.

Step 3: Click on the ‘About’ Tab and Find the ‘Donate’ Button

Once on the profile, scroll down until you see a tab named ‘about’, click it and there should be a button named ‘donations’ or ‘tips’ or any special name the streamer might have put to it. Click on there and this will open a new tab that will direct you to a different website depending on what the streamer might have chosen. 

Most times, streamers will choose to link with StreamLabs but some others might have their PayPal account linked. 

Additional Ways to donate

There are donation apps and twitch extensions that allow viewers to interact with the stream.

One of these is called soundalerts.app,  you can play a donation sound alert on their stream for a ‘bit’ donation.

You will find the donation interface below their stream window in the Twitch panel section. See the image below for how it looks, it’s as simple as click and donation. 

*Note*: Twitch also has their own special currency called ‘Bits’ which allows viewers to quickly donate and play a noise on the stream. The conversion from AUD to bits is 100 Bits for $1.75 AUD or $1.40 USD. In order for you to use the features that use Bits currency you will have to load your account with a certain amount of Bits and then use them. You can buy bits here https://www.twitch.tv/bits

Step 4: Fill the Donations Form 

If you have been redirected to the StreamLabs website, you will have to fill your username, the amount you want to donate and then as an option you can write a message or add a GIF to it or add an effect. On the left side, there will be a small window showing the preview of how it will look in the message/GIF for the streamer once the donation has been confirmed. 

If you have a Prime account with StreamLabs you will be able to use several more GIFS and effects. 

Alternatively, if your streamer is linked with Paypal, the new window will open on the PayPal website, ready to enter the amount and confirm the transaction. 

This is a quicker way of donating, however, no personalised GIFS or effects will appear. It will just show your username, a short message you can write and the pre-selected sound chosen for donations. 

Step 5: Chose How To Pay For The Donationwill 

At the end of confirming the amount and extras, it go to the next step where you can choose if you want to pay with credit/debit card or through PayPal. 

Step 6: Finalise Payment 

Once everything is confirmed, finalise the payment and watch the stream. Your donation will appear straight away and maybe you can get a shoutout. 

*Note*: You can support streamers by subscribing to their channels too as these subscriptions cost around $5 USD and they will get some percentage of that. In addition, by subscribing to their channel, you won’t be seeing any ads. 

Create a Win-Win for Both Streamers and Audience

The most important thing about donating on Twitch is the reward both streamers and audience receive from such help. Since it’s not a humanitarian donation, people would be expecting that by giving such help they receive some time of acknowledgement or they can see the money has been going to a good cause. 

Hence, it’s the reason why streamers need to create content that allows their audience to feel part of a community and be inspired/motivated to donate. 

Good examples of content that can be rewarding for both are those streamers who do video gaming as in order for them to have the good quality they would need different gadgets that allow them to show their TV screen with the live stream. In addition, the need of a green screen, gaming chair, gaming computer and other accessories, to create the type of content thousands of people would like to watch, involves a high price that not many new streamers could afford. 

Other examples of content are, painting, video reacting or podcasts. These would be ideas that people would like to watch and would be interested in coming back to watch every time a live stream is on. It is also the type of content people would donate or subscribe to, for the streamer to improve and acquire better tools, electronics or anything else they might need to improve their setup. 

So what do you think, are you ready to donate?

Share on facebook
Share on twitter
Share on email
Share on print

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Amazon WishLists

Check out the Deals

See famous equipment setups, in amazon wishlists for easy price monitoring

Ninjas Equipment wishlist

See the full Ninja setup article

Shroud Equipment Wishlist

Tfue Equipment Wishlist

See for yourself the Tfue gaming setup article

Dr Disrespect Equipment Wishlist

See the full Dr Disrespect article

What Cameras do YouTubers Use

Cameras YouTubers Use

Making money

See our latests articles about YouTube and Twitch. 

It can be hard starting out, read what is involved and why YouTubers do better with an agency.

Blockchain For Content creators

The world is away to change in a big way and it is looking good for content creators. See why Blockchain is good for content creators